| Hi everyone, it's Jason Schreier. This is a big week for gaming. The highly anticipated next-generation PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will finally arrive—capping off a 2020 that has been awful for most people, but pretty great for the $150 billion video game industry. On Tuesday, one of the most hotly anticipated games for both those consoles will be released: A new installment in one of gaming's biggest and strangest franchises, Assassin's Creed. Since it debuted in 2007, Assassin's Creed has sold more than 140 million copies, a huge success that spawned merchandise, books and even a film starring Michael Fassbender. But the game's maker, Ubisoft Entertainment SA, has recently been plagued with corporate scandal. Assassin's Creed Valhalla debuts just a few months after Ubisoft faced a reckoning over accusations of harassment and abuse at the company. The allegations led to dozens of investigations, resignations and firings across all of the French publisher's offices, from Paris to Montreal. The scandal also affected Assassin's Creed specifically: One of the people fired in the wake of this upheaval was Ashraf Ismail, the creative director on the new game, Bloomberg reported. Ubisoft's chief executive officer, Yves Guillemot, has vowed to turn things around, but Bloomberg reporting revealed that the company had been aware of these reports for years. With this latest Assassin's Creed release, Ubisoft is hoping to ride the series' popularity, and coast on the wave of new consoles, after a year of tumult. The Assassin's Creed game itself has come a long way since its early days. In its first iterations, the game was centered on stealth and action, encouraging players to explore real-life historical settings like Renaissance-era Italy, while sneaking around and stabbing enemies in the back. You could fight in the American Revolution, watch French nobles face the guillotine, and punch the Pope in the face. In more recent iterations of Assassin's Creed, the history is still there, but the genre has changed. Newer entries in the series have morphed into role-playing games (RPGs), embracing levels, stats and worlds full of elaborate quests. That evolution has been successful for Ubisoft. The two latest games—2017's Assassin's Creed Origins and 2018's Assassin's Creed Odyssey—have each sold more than 10 million copies, helping send Ubisoft's shares up more than 120% since the end of 2016. The new game takes the series to 7th century Norway and England. The protagonist is a Viking raider named Eivor, who can be male or female, and who must forge alliances with English provinces in hopes of conquering land. Players can build up a settlement of Vikings, use a longship to raid enemy castles, and explore the world, hunting for treasure and solving mysteries. I've played around 28 hours of Assassin's Creed Valhalla so far, all on the new Xbox Series X, and what I've seen is impressive. It runs beautifully, the exploration is satisfying, and the combat feels good. The game is sprinkled with fascinating Norse mythology, and Eivor's story is compelling enough to make you want to see through the whole thing, even if—like most big video games—it's just too long. Assassin's Creed Valhalla also dials back on the RPG elements a little bit in favor of some more old-school mechanics such as instant assassinations, which should be welcome for longtime series fans. It's too soon to say how Assassin's Creed fans will react to this new installment, and whether it can help propel Ubisoft's business into the new year as it undertakes a broader overhaul of its corporate culture. But no matter how well Assassin's Creed Valhalla may sell, it's clear the company has lots of work left to do. —Jason Schreier | 
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